Padres vs Giants Pick, Odds, Prediction | MLB Opening Day

Opening the season with NL West division baseball feels right. It's traditionally one of the more entertaining divisions in MLB, but the Dodgers typically power through the regular season.

Will the Dodgers have a real battle this year? Two of the contenders — The San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres hope to begin the year positively.

Here's my Giants vs. Padres pick and prediction.

The Giants have went through the arduous process of trying to add a superstar in three straight offseason. While they didn't land a true "star" this year, new manager Bob Melvin has three acquisitions to write into the lineup card.

The Giants added multi-time platinum glove winner Matt Chapman, a doubles-machine in Jorge Soler who can pop 25+ homers this season, and a reliable lead-off hitter in Jung Hoo Lee from Korea. All three will bring stability to the top-half of the Giants' lineup.

I'm particularly excited to see how Lee translates to MLB after a successful run in the KBO for the Kiwoom Heroes. Lee is a contact-hitting machine, hitting .356 with a .406 OBP in 85 games in the KBO last season, and will set the table nicely for the sluggers behind him. He could change the outlook of the Giants' future, and his six year, $113 million contract indicates the team believes the same.

Logan Webb will take the ball for Giants, and he's hoping to erase a disastrous spring training, where he posted a 10.97 ERA in 21 1/3 innings. Webb allowed 37 hits over the 21 frames, with three home runs.

Now, you can factor in inherent bad luck with sinker ballers since the objective is to generate soft contact. Sometimes, hits will sneak through, but Webb got hit hard all spring.

How will Webb respond to a very forgettable beginning to his season? Last year, Webb dealt nine innings of one-run ball in his lone outing against the Padres in 2023. I am optimistic about Webb turning things around in the regular season, especially with Chapman patrolling the hot corner and Nick Ahmed, another former Gold Glover, flanking Chapman at shortstop.

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It's a new era for the Padres in some ways. They traded Juan Soto to the Yankees to slash payroll. They didn't bring in any bats to supplement the loss of Soto, who posted a 155 wRC+ last season.

Still, the Padres boast a formidable top-three in the order: Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis Jr. Bogaerts' inaugural season in San Diego didn't go as planned, but he laced four hits in the two games against the Dodgers in South Korea. If he's a reliable hitter, like he was in Boston, Bogaerts adds a totally different dimension to the lineup.

Plus, you know Machado and Tatis are always capable of flipping a game on its head with one swing. Tatis cracked 25 home runs in a relatively down season for his standards, while Machado already hit one in South Korea and is coming off a 30-homer season.

It's worth noting that Machado is coming off an injury, so he'll occupy the DH spot until further notice. Expect a steady diet of the light-hitting lefty Tyler Wade and rookie Graham Pauley splitting reps at the hot corner for the time being.

Yu Darvish is taking the ball for San Diego after starting one of the two games in South Korea, where he allowed three hits walked three with a trio of strikeouts over 3 2/3 frames. The 37-year-old struggled last season, posting a 4.56 ERA and 1.30 WHIP in 132 innings.

He'll look to bounce back after an uneven season and rough first start of the year. Darvish allowed 2.84 BB/9, his highest walks per nine number since 2018 — when he pitched just 40 innings due to injury. He needs to settle down the walks against this new-look Giants lineup.

Darvish probably won't go super deep into the game. That puts a lot of pressure on the Padres bullpen, a unit that looks shaky with Josh Hader leaving in free agency. The only proven reliever on the roster is fireballer Robert Suarez, who notched his first save against the Dodgers in 1 1/3 innings with two punch-outs.

The bridge to Suarez looks bumpy. Melvin will rely on southpaws Wandy Peralta and Tom Cosgrove, but they could be less effective against right-handed heavy teams. With five bullpen newcomers, it could lead to Melvin trying out different options to reach Suarez, such as Enyel De Los Santos and imported relievers Woo-Suk Go and Yuki Matsui.

I love the look of the Giants' new lineup. There are no hitters the caliber of players they chased in the offseason such as Soto or Shohei Ohtani, but Chapman, Soler, Lee and Wilmer Flores make for a strong top-four. All four will look to add pitches to Darvish's pitch count before exploding against the bullpen.

If the Giants get six or seven strong from Webb, they can flip the game to Tyler Rogers, Taylor Rogers and Camilo Doval for the final nine outs. I love that setup.

I'm on the Giants on Opening Day.

Pick: Giants Moneyline